I’ve never had cooked whale. I’ve had sashimi a few times. It’s harder and meatier than most fish, with a more oily taste. It’s vaguely like toro (fatty tuna) with a bit more fish and fat in it. It’s not very good from my point of view. Of course, I don’t really like toro either, so not a big surprise that I don’t like kujira.
And yeah, the “research purposes” whaling is a big fat middle finger to the rest of the world concealed behind flimsy technicalities. They don’t even do most of the whaling in their own area, but go halfway around the world to grab whales from the Antarctic near Australia or Argentina, probably because there aren’t large enough communities near here to justify — however thinly — killing whales in any kind of numbers. No idea how much of that is due to past whaling and how much is natural decline or lack of large numbers in the first place, but it’s safe to say that there aren’t as many whales around Japan as in the past.
They’ve been heavily overfishing other ocean stocks; bluefin tuna are the most recent headliners. The fishing industry as a whole is circling the toilet. Fishermen went on strike a couple of months back as a protest against rising fuel costs that they say would bankrupt them eventually, especially given the dwindling catches and declining average size of the fish. Well, duh, that’s what happens when you’re exploiting a renewable resource beyond its sustainable capacity. Instead, they’re looking for government subsidies. Why not, that’s what the whalers did, and look how that turned out.
You can get whalemeat in the freezer in the shops up here. Seal is not so usual, but if you know someone who hunts them, its possible to get by.
Both meats can be put in milk, kefir or vinegar to get rid of some of the marine taste thats inherent in the meat. The meat therefore tastes like a mix of game and seafood (try a spoonful of codliveroil with your tenderloin next time ;)).
I used to get a lot of whalemeat as a boiled gravylike stew when I was a kid - that tasted like liver because the meat was overcooked.
Nowadays I like the whalemeat either as a carpaccio - thin slices cut from the frozen block served with drops of soy sauce and wasabi. Or just fry them quickly like a rare steak.
I like seal better than whale (tip – best way to make whale blubber palatable is to deep fry it and serve it with soya sauce). Seal is strongly flavoured I guess, but pretty tasty, IMO. I prefer the heart, raw. Hmm…I don’t have great memories of my time in Nunavut, but hanging out with some Inuit on a good day, kicking back country food…that could be fun.
I’ve never seen any sort of whale offered here, I suppose I’d have to go to Nunavut or Iceland or Japan. I have had alligator, though. It was greasy and a little rank and not terribly pleasant. The restaurant no longer exists.
also worth noting, when you ask what type of whale (kujira) it is, they just say “oh, it’s whale” (kujira desu). Course, they say the same thing when you ask them what kind of cheese they’re serving you, too (cheezu desu or sometimes suraisu (sliced) cheezu).
Did you know the Japanese are having to import seals (or sea lions, I forget which) from northern california now? Apparently they’re a pretty similar species to the native seals/sea lions here in Japan, which are pretty much dying out, so they’re trying to introduce a new population
Actually, I’ve never ordered it. The few times I’ve had it are because it was part of the appetizer in a set menu, or was in the little dish you get automatically when you go to a restaurant here.
I hadn’t heard that, actually. Looking it up, it seems that South Korea is the country pushing for the reintroduction. The native species has been gone extinct the 50s due to — you guessed it — too many of them being killed by Japanese commercial hunters.
There was a related painful/amusing incident a few years back. A sea lion was “adopted” and was given an honorary residency certificate in Yokohama. The gaijin community was annoyed by this considering that, officially, you can only get a residency certificate if you have a family registry, which means you have to be Japanese. The paperwork for foreign residents is called a “certificate of alien registration” and is handled in a separate office. It’s completely different from a regular residency certificate.
In other words, the sea lion, nicknamed “Tama-chan” got a regular residency certificate for being cute. This cheesed off some foreign residents because the bureaucratic regulations that are normally interpreted so strictly and inflexibly, and have been used for discriminatory treatment for things like employment, court decisions, child custody, and housing were so blithely ignored when the city felt like adopting an animal as a mascot.
no, they’re being used to increase the population, though it wouldn’t surprise me if some were being eaten
Sleel: Yea, I heard about Yama-chan some of those regulations have changed recently, though. For instance now gaijin can vote if they’ve had residency for something like 7 years, whereas before we couldn’t vote AT ALL regardless of how long we’d been here (I’m not anywhere near the 7 year mark, myself). Voting was a Japanese-only affair
I imagine that in Japan most people have to go through some sort of training to be a railway stationmaster, too, but cute kitties just need a little hat. Perhaps you could wear a little hat?
some of those regulations have changed recently, though. For instance now gaijin can vote if they’ve had residency for something like 7 years, whereas before we couldn’t vote AT ALL regardless of how long we’d been here (I’m not anywhere near the 7 year mark, myself). Voting was a Japanese-only affair